In describing her newly published memoir, Dr. Pipher explores her personal search for understanding, tranquility, and respect through her work as a psychologist and seeker.
There is a vast wisdom describing the capacity for self-transformation and healing central to Buddhist psychology, now a focus of current neuroscience research as well. We will delineate the principles and clinical/therapeutic applications of mindfulness, compassion and forgiveness trainings, attunement, mental health and well being, as well as the profound shift of identity that has parallels in eastern psychology and recent neuroscience research. We will explore the wedding of a spiritual psychology of the heart in tune with clinically sound modern science.
The challenge of personal transformation is faced differently in the East and West. Typically, Eastern meditation emphasizes how to cultivate higher states of consciousness that "go beyond" ego identifications, while Western therapy focuses on how to "work through" problematic states. This workshop explores an integrative model that suggests how to use both approaches in a complementary way: sometimes "transcending, sometimes "transforming", and often doing both at the same time. The connection between meditation, generative trance, and selfrelations will be a central focus.
A presentation of the influence upon therapy, particularly Strategic Therapy of Zen Buddhism. Similarities between therapeutic change and spiritual enlightenment are discussed in terms of the relationship between Master and trainee and therapist and client. The use of directives, of riddles, of absurd tasks, and the types of single interventions and paradoxical procedures are discussed. Examples of cases and Zen stories are compared. Zen, systems theory, and Erickson's strategic therapy are brought together.